Plenty has happened in the past couple of weeks, shame on me for being lazy....just a lot easier to watch football than find time to write about it. And I love Nathan Williams, a beast for OSU defense.
Notre Dame Finishes Strong...for once: It is all about how you finish. 7-5 looks a lot better when its due to a 3 game win streak than a 3 game losing streak. ND has not had a strong November in quite a few years, Weiss' run was notorious for having his team fall apart as the season came to a close. Kelly has had a rough year, that looked like it was about to fall apart when October turned nasty, but they held together. They found a defense and managed to play tough, old school ND football. And not to be forgotten, but that 8 year losing streak to USC was finally broken with a 20-16 win in LA. They will get some eh bowl, or maybe something decent cause ND brings money, and hopefully another win. It is all about how you finish.
I wonder what Urban Meyer is thinking: Last season, Florida was an offensive juggernaut that was poised to win a 3rd National Championship. Meyer and Tebow was an unstoppable team, well not totally, Bama rolled them over but then they came back to utterly destroy Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl. It is jarring to see, this season, how incredibly inept and ineffective the Gator's offense is. Florida St is better but looked like they were in another class in the rival game and finally broke the 6 game winning streak of the Gators over Seminoles. When you see Florida's trio of QBs all doing badly, inceptions and fumbles, Urban Meyer must be thinking, "I wish Tebow was here." I think it is a rare thing for a coach and player to seem to be fundamentally link in all phases of the game. Meyer has been able to adjust and tweak his offense when it moved from Leak to Tebow but there was no answer to Brantley, Burton, or Reed. It will be interesting to see what happens in the off season and into next year, Meyer has things to change.
The Fallen Lone Star: It has to be a historic fall. Texas was really one bad throw away from winning the BCS National Championship and now they are not even ranked. They are 5-7, not going anyway to any bowl this year for the first time since the late 90s. Mac Brown is going to really look through his staff and heads will roll for whats happened. Texas has no issue with gaining talent so they will rise again but it might be harder than it was. The Big 12, or soon to be 10, has much more depth now with rising powers in Oklahoma St, Missouri, Texas A&M and possibly Texas Tech. I wouldn't be surprised if Texas reigns supreme next season over the diminished conference but its hold will be more tenuous than in past years.
The Big Ten's Big Three: Wisconsin, Ohio St, and Michigan St will all share the title of Big Ten Champions this year. Each of the teams will end with a one loss record in the conference and showed varying degrees of dominance throughout the year. Wisconsin put on another show of force and seemed to be on a totally other level than Northwestern. Ohio St and Michigan went at it again in "The Game" but its definitely not the same game. Ohio St has owned Michigan the last couple of years and the only real game of national consequence was in 2006 when the teams were ranked 1 and 2. And like last year, it wasn't competitive and Ohio St extends its winning streak. The only close game was Michigan St and Penn St where Joe Pa created a rally in the 4th quarter that ultimately failed. Wisconsin has the highest BCS rank and will then go out to the Rose Bowl and Ohio St will likely go to the Sugar Bowl.
BCS Busting Bronco's Busted: The Boise St Broncos have been always knocking on the door to get into the BCS championship game, they are the constant outsider. They had played perfect through 11 games, sometimes being challenged and sometimes just walking through weak teams. They got one final test against a ranked Neveda team but even that wasn't expected to be a loss. This is why we play the game, cause Neveda pulled off the upset mostly thanks to Boise St missing two field goals. They missed one to win the game and then missed one to win the OT, so Neveda comes out with the big win. TCU is now the only non-automatic qualifier school that can possible get into the Championship game is Oregon or Auburn loses.
Newton rolls back the Tide: I honestly thought that Alabama would beat Auburn and for the first half of the game if seemed like I was right. Alabama was rolling with offense and Auburn had no answers, so yea everything was going right. Of course there are two halves in Football and Auburn turned the game around. Cam Newton seems to have cemented himself as this year's Heisman winner, barring any real evidence coming out about a pay for play issue. I think its ironic that Alabama's starting qb gets knocked out of the game, and that ultimately is what causes them to lose. Alabama knocked out Texas' Colt McCoy in the Championship game and made that game much easier to win.
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